English

If like your kinswoman of old,
If like that star of maidens, Pocahontas,
You found me, O my beloved, near to death,
Found me with my head laid on the stones, and the brute war-clubs raised above me,
Then, Golden Bird, I know that, never faltering, never trembling
You, too, O Star of Maidens,
Would take my head into your arms and lay your lovely head on mine,
And save me from great death in the dark moment.

Let now my soul
Ascend with the song of glorious love to the skies of the morning,
Let now my lark-soul, sun of the darkness, dawn toward the sun of the day,
Earth is too narrow: give me a sky to sing in:
Give me a sky for a golden love-song ...

I arose from the bed of night and from the arms of my beloved in the darkness:
I arose: I tasted resurrection:
The god, struggling in my breast, became a lark ...
" This is what the Earth means," I cried,
" Why our planet goes with singing down the sky-road of the stars."

My beloved is the prow of my spirit plunging through the billowing blue of the morning,
There is a sea-song in our on-going, and a wind-song in our sails:
Our sails are glittering wings, our ship is a bird rising from the running seas,
We have a sky, we have a sky for soaring and singing,
Earth sparkles beneath us in September glory,
And near the sun we pour our golden love-song upon the planet . .

Fling your lasso of light curling about our heads,
Morning-fire,
Smite with your spears of gold the pulse of our hearts,
Strike sun-up song from our souls, that arising with kisses
We become the crown of life,
A young garland of the Earth.

Come, let us take our breakfast in the city where the people dwell in darkness,
Let the brook-babble of a continuous musical laughter be soft between us,
Let us veil our eyes from each other and guard our lips,
Let us seem sane and practical in the wild morning-weather,
Let not the heaven of glory within us be manifest before the people,
Let them not see the sky where we soar together ...
Lest we be taken, lest we be confined, lest we be put away,
Lest we be arrested for lunacy ...

This is love's proof:
That it is more wonderful to be together, than to be parted:
That distance does not touch each other with a glamour
Half so beautiful as the witchery of nearness:
That the hours together go all too soon, too soon:
That morning trips on the heels of evening, and the dark is juggled with the light:
That we never have time enough to say all the things that we must say:
That parting makes us aware of hunger and desire:
That the thousandth touch of lips has the fine intoxication of the first:

Forget yourself into a child,
And let me be the cradling arms
Of far away and long ago ...
Lay away trouble and pain, lay them away,
Lay them on me, my own,
And give your soul into mine.

Come from many troubles into peace,
Come from tired travel into rest ...
Float away on the waters of melodious mothering silence,
Down to the sea of sleep,
Down to the Deep of Dreams.

Are you in my arms, my bird,
Are you here? are you here, in the hollow beside my cheek?
Slender Pocahontas was your great-great-grandmother,
The pines and the waters soothed her into slumber,
Soothed her, caressed her, and murmured her asleep ...

Let me be the pines and the waters,
And the dark, the summer Earth,
Let me be caressing South-Wind
Starry and melodious ...
Let me gather you, let me be your enfolding into a nest,
Let me be the waters where you slip to the dark and cease,

My love is a winged heart ...
O dark depths of my ghost whence, throbbing, she flies
Out and up to the heavens on the golden thread of my love ...

My love is a winged heart ...
And I draw in the golden thread, I draw it in quickly,
Lest she be flown, lest she be quite vanished ...

My love is a winged heart ...
Singing, she drops in my hands, and I put her warm in my breast ...
Surely I should die if she never returned.

Listen, dear Golden Bird ...
When I was a tiny fellow, when I was nine years old,
Some wonder slipped from my spirit, and was lost, was lost ...
But far-off on the Earth, O Golden Bird, you were born ...

Long dark years were mine ... dust of struggle and toil ...
And I ran through the cities seeking, and looking at the beautiful faces ...
Was this the wonder? was this? or was it a pine, a sea-wave,
Or was it a song, a star?

My music jangled in my throat, aching for the wonder,